A Full Set At Last

Although I knew all three of my grandparents, and adored my father’s mother beyond belief, I have always felt incomplete not knowing my mother’s own mother. For all these years, I have not had what so many others have – a picture of all four of my ancestors. That is, until recently, late one night, when into my email inbox arrived a message with the subject…”Could this be your grandmother?”

The note was from my cousin, Keri. We share the same grandfather, and for years, together, we have reminisced about the Nana, I, for so many years, thought was also mine. It’s a story that rivals the classic soap operas. My mother, raised by an “evil” stepmother – constantly berated and told how inadequate she was – hearing how her mother abandoned her, didn’t love her and was never coming back. The stories of this wanton woman’s love of vodka and her husbands was something to be hidden away in shame, never talked about and erased like the past never existed. When my mom and I took our first trip to Europe, she shared stories I’d never heard. Perhaps it was the bottles of wine or the Parisian scenery that finally made my mother comfortable talking about a childhood that was no doubt filled with heartache and drama.

As I was growing up, there were phone calls in the middle of the night and letters that were quickly torn up or stashed out of sight. I discovered later that it was her – Lillian – trying awkwardly and unsuccessfully to reconnect with the daughter she had last seen when she was a mere teenager. Some answers to the puzzles of my own childhood – there was always Chinese food in our house and my mother loves when we take her to Chinese restaurants today, because my mother would spend her days in a Chinatown establishment owned by the latest flame of her own mother. She would spend hours there until the time arrived and she had to return home and deal with “her other mother.” 

“I was Cinderella before there was one,” she told me once.

But in all her stories, my mother had nothing bad to say about this woman – only that, as the years have gone by, that she tries harder and harder to picture her in her mind. And the one connection she has with her, she carries to this day in her wallet – a picture of her own maternal grandmother.

And, then, in my email – there it was - the black and white photo of my grandfather with a mysterious woman, who is coiffed and fabulous and, just maybe, upon close inspection, a very pregnant lady. Could it be her?

The day after I sent my mother the picture, she emailed me back and said, yes, it had to be her. She can never forget that nose, but the hair – it was so dark and she only remembered blonde hair.  And, once the image was confirmed by her brother – my mother simply cried into my ear on the phone.

“This was all I’ve wanted – all these years - just a picture of her.”

And, as I told her to dry her tears, I told her that it was all I ever wanted as well. And now, on my wall – hangs a full set of my lineage. Three Italians and the one Lithuanian, who as I learn more and more about – it becomes clear that I take after above any of them.

Love of Vodka? Check.

Love of a Good Time? Check

Love of Men? Triple Check. 

What could have been if the two ever connected can never be known – it was a different time and place, where family relationships were anything but simple and shared so easily as they are today in every medium from Oprah’s couch to Facebook and beyond.

But what I have now is, like my mother said, proof that she really did exist. That there was a woman who no doubt tried her hardest and did the best she could. Though I will never know her or have memories of her as I do my father’s mother, I can look at this picture and see the woman who gave me the Cinderella who makes my world magical every day.